Report: Iran official says US woman detained

Iranian border guards have detained an American woman on suspicion of spying, a senior police official said Saturday - the latest in a string of conflicting reports on the case.

Gen. Ahmad Geravand told state radio that authorities arrested the woman on Wednesday while she was filming border crossings and guard posts in the town of Jolfa along Iran's border with Azerbaijan.

The semiofficial ISNA news agency quoted Geravand as identifying the woman as 34-year-old Hal Fayalan, and saying she "was on a mission for the Americans to film the country's borders."

Geravand also said the woman at one point claimed to be a Swiss citizen.

The statement follows reports on Thursday from a state-owned Iranian newspaper and the semiofficial Fars news agency that authorities had detained an American woman carrying "spy equipment" along the Armenian border, which is also near Iran's frontier with Azerbaijan. The reports identified the woman as Hal Talaian.

But hours later, Iranian state TV denied the reports, and said no American had been detained.

A U.S. official said Friday there was no indication that an American woman had been arrested in Iran, and said a search of passport and other records could not find a match for the name Hall Talaian or variations of it.

If the woman's arrest is confirmed, she would be the fourth American Iran has detained and accused of spying in less than two years.